, 1887-08-30
PRESCRIPTION CLERKS WORK.
Careful Druggists and Others who Sgve
Doctors from

errors made by those who compound
drugs.
Yes" said he, ga druggist who
makes a blunder that costs a life may as
well go out of business or move away to
escape his reputation. But, let me tell
you, such blunders are few in proportion
to the opportunities for making them.
Take my own experience, for instance.
| made one year an average of the num-
Der of prescriptions l put up daily during
hat time. l found l had averaged forty
odd per day-call it forty. Now that
fooJ up about IA, 900 for the year. A
thoroughly competent prescription clerk
is able to average five prescriptions each
hour. OF course some prescriptions re-
quire a long time to fill, but others are
put up very quickly, SO that, if a man
has them to do, he can average, as 1 say,
five per hour.
well, now, there are over 500 stores
in New York city employing two pre-
scription clerks each. That makes 1000
clerks, and if each averages, say forty
prescriptions per day or IA, 900 in a year,
the total will be 1000 times that, or
about "A, 1000, 900 prescriptions put up in
this city every year. The total is more
than that at the daily average l named,
but let it stand for round numbers. Yes,
the amount is large, but then multiply
that by 90 1000 to owe New York state,
II / dare swear that with SO many
chances to kill somebody, there are fewer
fatal blunders by druggists than are made
by the same number of men in any other
vocation.
"But u prescription clerk must not
only guard himself against blunders liable
to be made by himself, as he is frequently
called upon to ave physicians from fatal
or disagreeable errors. How? Why, a
clerk on reading a prescription may find
that ingredients are disproportioned SO
that if the written order was obeyed
somebody would soon be a subject for
burial. For instance, a clerk may get a
prescription for pills with poisonous in
gradients. The physician has written the
proper relative quantities of the drugs,
but has in haste or heedlessness neglected
to order how many pills to make of the
compounded mass. He has neglected to
write in his prescription whether the
compound is to be made into one mighty
pill or into fifty little ones. One of the
latter might effect a cure, whereas the
entire mass, if dropped down an unsus-
pecting throat, would be about the last
the patient would ever swallow.
"What do we do in such a case? That
depends upon who the physician is and
what the customer may be. If the doc
tor be one whom we know we may right
the error, if we are certain as to what
should be done. That is, we may put up
prescriptions daily for a physician, and so
become acquainted with his methods and
treatments. But, if we do not know the
doctor, and if the customer is an educated
person, we say to the customer: Doctor
So-and-so has doubtless intended differ
emily than he has written here, and we
think you had best go back to him and
say that your druggist desires him to see
the prescription again before it is put up
An educated person will at once under
stand that q physician, under stress of
professional anxieties, may nave made
some little slip, and the doctor does
not suffer. But if the customer be an ig-
norant person the action to be taken diff
fers. We desire not TO injure the physi-
clan, but if we were to say to an igno-
rant and ~uneducated customer that his
doctor had made such blunder in his pre-
scription that we could not put it up,
why the customer would never forgive
the medical man, but would out upon
him as a quack. Yes, I'll tell you how
we do. I'd say to that uneducated GUS
IOiueIs tNO", BIZ, one Oh Ine ingredients
in this prescription is very difficult to
get, and it will require some time-come
back in three hours, and it will be ready
for you Then we send the prescription
at once to the doctor, who sees the error,
corrects it, and puts us in shape to go
ahead. But do you suppose the doctor
likes it? Why, l have saved doctors from
serious consequences before now, and
had them fly into a passion at what they
called impertinent meddling, and advise
their patients to shun us as incompetents.
But / have observed that the suggested
change is made or the omission is sup
piled before the medicine is prepared.
Other physicians, however, appreciate
the service rendered them"
Then the experienced prescription clerk
was asked if the FASTING of one label over
another was approved by the pharma-
ceutical code of ethics, whereupon the
E. P. G. grew warm.
"a druggist who does that, said he,
sis absolutely lazy. The recognized right
way is always to soak off old labels-re-
move them entirely and neatly. l nave
in times of great haste scatched off a
label with my knife. That was slovenly,
but it was at least right and safe. No,
all druggists do not do it, but they should.
] know they do not, because / have my
self soaked six labels from a bottle brought
in for a prescription. New York Sun,